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- All Subjects: Millennials
- Creators: Montoya, Detra
- Creators: School of Social and Behavioral Sciences
- Member of: Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
Before creating a campaign targeting Millennials, this thesis first identifies which consumers belong in the Millennial demographic. The definition given looks beyond the ‘age 18-34’ demographic information and analyzes the generation’s unique characteristics, their feelings of being misunderstood by businesses, the importance of social media and technology in their world, and what motivates them to take action.
The subsequent case studies examine the advertising tactics of Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, the burgeoning social news and entertainment website BuzzFeed, and Beats by Dre headphones. Each of these brands successfully captured the Gen Y demographic group, with an emphasis on the younger end of the 18-34 age spectrum, and effectively communicated their understanding of Millennials’ culture. Each of the three campaigns contained social or digital elements to create engaging and relevant content for the niche of younger Millennials. Immediately following the case studies, best practices are outlined to summarize the findings.
Finally, a digital campaign is proposed for Bose headphones. The literature review, case studies, and best practices contributed to the culminating campaign, which will allow Bose to reach the younger Millennial audience.
To bridge the gap between the growing sales industry there is the ability to properly train Millennials so they are successful and stay within their roles longer. By attacking this problem from a university level by strengthening sales programs as well as having employers understand and respond to needs of the Millennial generation, this will create an overall successful Millennial salesperson that will stay with their employer long term.
Strengths and weaknesses of this generation are also important to understand. Millennials are known to be tech-savvy, open-minded, collaborative, and connected, resourceful networkers. They also carry weaknesses and stereotypes of being lazy, lacking communication skills, impatient, entitled, and demanding of feedback and work flexibility. From an employer, they expect a large salary as well as a good culture, manager feedback, a mentor, work-life integration, an employer with a social responsibility mindset, and a sense of purpose.
An analysis of 12 sales programs at various universities across the country helped to understand what is being taught and offered to students as well as commonalities and differences that make a strong sales program. Commonalities among these programs include, about 250+ students, high job placement, sales labs, hosting and competing in sales competitions, and a desire to expand and grow their programs. Unique aspects of various programs were partnerships with the sales industry, hosting fundraisers, student ambassadors for the sales program, CRM courses, and internships and competition requirements.
Primary research was conducted to understand various sales development programs from companies in the sales industry. The 12 companies that participated in this research were from Arizona State University’s Sales Advisory Board. These companies completed a survey that provided detailed information of their onboarding and training process as well as their opinions of Millennial employees.
From this research, recommendations were formed for employers,
• creating a collaborative and innovative culture
• A mentorship program
• work flexibility
• continuous learning
• sense of purpose
As for Arizona State’s Sales Program, recommendations include,
• a mentorship program between Sales Scholars and the Sales Advisory Board
• creating a sales lab
• implementing CRM curriculum in classes
• continued support from the Board and alumni of the sales program
To gain insight into the state of the industry and current position of independent bookstores, I will first examine the past fifty years of the brick-and-mortar bookstore, followed by a Porter’s Five Forces analysis of the industry threats and a SWOT analysis to compare the strengths and weaknesses of independent bookstores. Next, the patrons of independent bookstores will be discussed with a focus on the two largest consumer groups of Millennials and Baby Boomers, their characteristics, and the opportunities they provide to bookstores. After this there will be an exploration of the competitors to brick-and-mortar bookstores, focusing on Amazon and then touching on some of the other rivals to bookstores’ consumer base. The next section will be an in-depth analysis of a variety of bookstores across the United States, with attention to their successful practices, goals, concerns, and failures. First, there will be a comparison of industry success and failure through case studies of Borders and Powell’s bookstores. Next, there will be a comparison of five beloved independent bookstores across the country to share their varied competitive advantages that are the secret to their success. Finally, there are primary source interviews with the employees of three major Phoenix bookstores, which provide insight into the goals, current projects, attitudes, and inner strengths of these businesses. Finally, the thesis will conclude with a section offering solutions and suggestions for independent bookstores to pursue based on the primary and secondary research discussed above. These recommendations are focused on five key areas:
• Community
• Consumers
• Store Design
• Technology
• Diversification
Ultimately, the information provided by this research and these interviews indicates that while vital business changes are being pursued by independent and chain bookstores across the United States, the independent bookstore shows no signs of disappearing in favor of online vendors or e-readers.
With a prison population that has grown to 1.4 million, an imprisonment rate of 419 per 100,000 U.S. residents, and a recidivism rate of 52.2% for males and 36.4% for females, the United States is facing a crisis. Currently, no sufficient measures have been taken by the United States to reduce recidivism. Attempts have been made, but they ultimately failed. Recently, however, there has been an increase in experimentation with the concept of teaching inmates basic computer skills to reduce recidivism. As labor becomes increasingly digitized, it becomes more difficult for inmates who spent a certain period away from technology to adapt and find employment. At the bare minimum, anybody entering the workforce must know how to use a computer and other technological appliances, even in the lowest-paid positions. By incorporating basic computer skills and coding educational programs within prisons, this issue can be addressed, since inmates would be better equipped to take on a more technologically advanced labor market.<br/>Additionally, thoroughly preparing inmates for employment is a necessity because it has been proven to reduce recidivism. Prisons typically have some work programs; however, these programs are typically outdated and prepare inmates for fields that may represent a difficult employment market moving forward. On the other hand, preparing inmates for tech-related fields of work is proving to be successful in the early stages of experimentation. A reason for this success is the growing demand. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment in computer and information technology occupations is projected to grow 11 percent between 2019 and 2029. This is noteworthy considering the national average for growth of all other jobs is only 4 percent. It also warrants the exploration of educating coders because software developers, in particular, have an expected growth rate of 22 percent between 2019 and 2029. <br/>Despite the security risks of giving inmates access to computers, the implementation of basic computer skills and coding in prisons should be explored further. Programs that give inmates access to a computing education already exist. The only issue with these programs is their scarcity. However, this is to no fault of their own, considering the complex nature and costs of running such a program. Accordingly, this leaves the opportunity for public universities to get involved. Public universities serve as perfect hosts because they are fully capable of leveraging the resources already available to them. Arizona State University, in particular, is a more than ideal candidate to spearhead such a program and serve as a model for other public universities to follow. Arizona State University (ASU) is already educating inmates in local Arizona prisons on subjects such as math and English through their PEP (Prison Education Programming) program.<br/>This thesis will focus on Arizona specifically and why this would benefit the state. It will also explain why Arizona State University is the perfect candidate to spearhead this kind of program. Additionally, it will also discuss why recidivism is detrimental and the reasons why formerly incarcerated individuals re-offend. Furthermore, it will also explore the current measures being taken in Arizona and their limitations. Finally, it will provide evidence for why programs like these tend to succeed and serve as a proposal to Arizona State University to create its own program using the provided framework in this thesis.